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Finally completed the first island in Farcry 3 and by this time I'm a bit exhausted from the open world stuff and just want to get on with the main game stuff, which is not very interesting from a narrative point of view, but the gameplay is fun so I don't really mind. Fortunately I've got all the upgrades I desire so there is no need for relics hunting and boring side missions (silly isnland people sending me on silly fetch quests).

Also playing a lot of The binding of isac (got it from the generosity thread. Cheers Atrophy) and it's surprisingly brilliant (I had a felling I'll hate it, so I never bothered getting it in the past).

Re. CKII, I haven't got into it yet either, but one of the discussions on the main RPS page mentioned some Youtube videos to try, and I've heard several people mentioning this in general, although only one giving a link. Thought there were more links till I went back to the posts.

Anyhow, I've started on The Witcher and it's...well, I'm only 2 hours in, so I don't know too much to make of it, so far. Opted for the hardest difficulty setting because I'm trying to challenge myself in games lately, so we'll see if that was a painful mistake.

I usually hate it when people say this about games but it really doesn't get going until near the end of the first chapter but it's an excellent game once things start opening up and moving along.

I'd not be particularly inclined to play it on hard. On medium there were scenarios where you had to be very careful to take the right potions to prepare for a fight/area (usually through research you'll have a good idea of the type of things you'll need but there are a few annoying surprises here and there) but you could usually muddle through. The way the difficulty settings read suggests to me that on hard you'll have to be on top of this all the time, which sounds like a bit too much inventory/resource management for a game in which most of the idea is you're a bad ass grizzled monster hunter. I think this is more the case in the first game, the way the skills work in the second you can pretty much neglect alchemy if you want but I'd certainly not advise it in the first one.

It starts slow, but it gets better. Then it gets worse again, but then it gets a lot better. Just ignore the sex cards, it's mostly easy to see which options to avoid. Regarding the difficulty, I don't think it has the same difficulty spikes as the second, so you'll proably be fine. It's a great game, all things considered, but a quite uneven one.

Re. CKII, I haven't got into it yet either, but one of the discussions on the main RPS page mentioned some Youtube videos to try, and I've heard several people mentioning this in general, although only one giving a link. Thought there were more links till I went back to the posts.

Oh yeah, I meant to say that the first game is blessed with an odd difficulty curve so if you find yourself breezing through the start on hard then stick with it. It starts awkward while you figure out how things work, hits its hardest difficulty during the second chapter and then somewhere during chapter 3 it becomes a cakewalk as you are overpowered.

They made a bit of a hash of solving this in the second game by having the difficulty spike outrageously upwards during boss fights, though part of the issue of easiness in the second game was due to the overpowered Quen sign, which I believe may have been altered in a patch.

Sonic And People Racing
Sonic And "Now I'm in a boat"
Sonic And Transformed Racing With All The Stars etc.

When I started I actually found it quite difficult to control. I went from Sonic to Knuckles, who basically is the most balanced between Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Go for Tails if you want supreme control, but you'll find yourself over time getting better and starting with Tails will mean moving to lower handling rated characters will be a steeper challenge. You'll eventually need to find yourself moving to the lower handling rated characters anyhow if you'll want to get higher speeds. Of course you can always use higher handling for specific events until you unlock other mods. Higher handling gives you more steer while drifting. Anyhow, after levelling up Knuckles, I was eventually able to move onto Sonic, before venturing out and trying a few other characters.

As for the items, definitely a shame they're less well themed or interesting, however they do their job and I'd rather have slightly less interesting weapons (although interesting being made up for with almost everything else) than some of the bollocks in the MK item roster.

I too have been enjoying the game though. Just under 11 hours played (forget Steam, the game has its own racing timer) and just over 60% of the single player stuff complete. Feeling a bit bad-ass, really. 5 more tournaments (4 races each) and I'll have the final character unlocked, so I'm excited to have the full roster. Basically, it's a fantastic game that only starts to get frustrating on the highest difficulty setting, where it's more frustration with yourself that you're not meeting the usually quite fair challenge. Strongly recommend it both for people looking on who were interested or for others interested in an arcade racer.

Anyhow, I've started on The Witcher and it's...well, I'm only 2 hours in, so I don't know too much to make of it, so far. Opted for the hardest difficulty setting because I'm trying to challenge myself in games lately, so we'll see if that was a painful mistake. The interface is a bit clumsy and all over the place, not helped by some of the menus looking a lot more complicated than how they actually are. I get what they're doing, with a really nicely done style, but it's a little overwhelming. Combat is a tad boring, but not to the extent that I'm yawning. It's active enough, I suppose. Anyhow, stopped before getting into Chapter 1, after having laughed at the hilarious lack of subtlety displayed, for example: "Well, we need to hurry, but let's have sex." *Sex occurs - gets weird card showing who I slept with, with a cat over the only place it would be on something like this* "Oh by the way, our friend died and everything is screwed."

Still, it's only 2 hours. I'm aware I have a long way to go. We'll see what happens, though I'm enjoying it enough so far.

I started a replay of the Witcher using the Combat Rebalance Mod (similar to how combat works in the Witcher II, Very powerful when you do it right but also need to patient and avoid getting surrounded, focus on timing and manoeuvre), and I’m about as big a fan of the games as they come, but I’d forgotten how poor Kaehr Moren is. That one who dies particularly, with his “I’m a real boy” dialogue and made to die persona. But it gets better fast.

There are few games which do a better job of creating a world which feels lived in and much bigger than the protagonist, and the physical and cultural space between rural and urban life, and the politics which govern and impact upon it all. The pace of narrative reveal and exposition is delicious, and really brings out everything you’ve experienced and paints a bigger picture than the sum of it’s parts. Combat becomes far more rewarding as your abilities progress, you start chaining together more powerful attacks and end up lopping off heads, stunning people and splitting them in two in mid air and stuff. The mechanics don’t change but the reward for clicking is vastly improved basically. Sex cards I just ignored first time round, it’s pretty obvious when they’re going to arise so just avoid the Carry on dialogue option and you're golden. You don't miss out on anything apart from the card.

The sequel is better, and tighter, but it loses some of the expanse of the first. You should take your time, listen to the passing conversations and songs, watch the faunae and NPC’s interact with each other, really take time to look at the world, it’s a very rich experience, still quite unlike most others.

Wot? I know what I said last time is a vague description of what I'm playing but come on, don't tell me you've never played any RCT 2 before.

Speaking of, I finally made a bigass rollercoaster with a 9.11 Exitement rating. Just a teeny little problem that the fact I made it blocked sectioned had made the patrons getting bored and restless with the endless "I WANNA GET OUUUUUT" thoughts while they're riding them. I had to close it down and remove the block sections, shaving off two minutes of ride-time.

Still playing Baldur's Gate1. Instead of going to Baldur's Gate as the plot would've liked, I've opted to go for the Tales of the Sword coast expansion town ( no, I don't remember the name :P ) then a wizard "hired" me to get his cloak. From a dungeon full of dangerous spellcasters. I'll see if I can kill him when I make it out.

It's good to know the old tactic of sending in the summons until the enemies waste most of their spellbook is still valid .. especially since they love using lightning bolt in those small corridors.

Fallout 3 (GOTY - but I think I still have to enable the "datafiles" for the DLC, even though they come with it, right)?

So far, I'm finding my usual difficulty with being anything other than really nice to people in game going on. And also mutant fire ants are... more than a little annoying (I guess I'm not supposed to go to Grayditch first thing after leaving the Vault? There I was exploring a bit before heading to Megaton, and...)

Thanks for the opinions/chiming in re. Witcher 1. I feel I should re-iterate that I am enjoying it so far. It's been a bit of time since I've played such an obviously rooted RPG and it's clearly a different one at that. My biggest problem so far is simply the interface. The actual game is fine and the characters are otherwise enjoyable (although yes, saying that Leo's dialogue amounted to "I'm a real boy!" is hilariously accurate). I am looking forward to playing more, I suppose my previous post was more speculation on if I'd made the right decisions even now.

Re. CKII, I haven't got into it yet either, but one of the discussions on the main RPS page mentioned some Youtube videos to try, and I've heard several people mentioning this in general, although only one giving a link. Thought there were more links till I went back to the posts.

Thanks for the opinions/chiming in re. Witcher 1. I feel I should re-iterate that I am enjoying it so far. It's been a bit of time since I've played such an obviously rooted RPG and it's clearly a different one at that. My biggest problem so far is simply the interface. The actual game is fine and the characters are otherwise enjoyable (although yes, saying that Leo's dialogue amounted to "I'm a real boy!" is hilariously accurate). I am looking forward to playing more, I suppose my previous post was more speculation on if I'd made the right decisions even now.

There are no right decisions .. or wrong ones. Much like real life there are good and bad consequences for whatever you do.

I could very early see that it's a game completely built around the idea of co-op, but none of my friends have it, and there is absolutely zero online population, so, shelved.

I was planning to try it sooner rather than later, if you guys are interested, maybe we can set something up?

edit 2:

Originally Posted by Lambchops

I'd not be particularly inclined to play it on hard. On medium there were scenarios where you had to be very careful to take the right potions to prepare for a fight/area (usually through research you'll have a good idea of the type of things you'll need but there are a few annoying surprises here and there) but you could usually muddle through.

I played on Medium and most of the problems for me were in Chapter 2, but probably due to my finding the game's explanations not overly clear and stopping for a month. After that I went to the Witcher's wiki on Wikia which was extremely useful.

Mind you I was still picking up even the silliest bit of sidequest so at times I was so powerful I didn't need potions at all... and that was the part when it felt the best. The combat interface and camera (I used low iso) are IMO too fiddly so maneuvering among many enemies would grow tedious, also because that interrupted attack chains prolonging the fights even more.

I've been enjoying Quantum Conundrum up to the point of the precision safe-tossing level. Fuck that! I'm going to do something else.

There were so many levels like that in QC, I can't even think which one you're referring to. Had a blast in that game.

Still pootering along in Dishonored. Got all the stealth-related level 2 powers I want, so now runes are just fun diversions. Think I got the best stealth bone charms, too. Only killed one character so far, and he deserved it.

Finally playing Max Payne 3. Had to crack it to play it even if I have a legit steam version... I am pissed.

The game is quite brilliant, I love the settings, the music, the voice over... A bit too many cutscene though. But I missed Max, so I am glad that Rockstar didn't ruin the series, and can live with it.

The Gameplay is really good, but sometimes I put some bullets in a guy, just to realise it wasn't enough bullets.... I am playing in normal and I find the difficulty on par with the 2 first one. (As far as I can remember)